The Opening Show of Major League 2026
The Bluman cousins hold the top two spots on win chance.
Two horses, two cousins, and a single percentage point between them. Mark Bluman & Landon de Nyze head the EquiRatings Prediction Centre for tonight’s $250,000 5* BFL 1.55m Qualifier in Toronto on a 16% win chance. Daniel Bluman & Corbie V.V., the winners of the Grand Prix at this venue last year, sit on 15%. Everything else in the field is looking up at a Bluman.
The twist is the horse at the top. Landon de Nyze has had three riders at CSI5* 155+ level, and all three are in the ring tonight. Kent Farrington produced him. Daniel Bluman had him for a handful of runs. Mark Bluman has had him since December and, in under nine months, has taken him to a higher rating than at any point before.
Qualifiers are tactical. Riders are jumping for a place in the final as much as for the win, and that makes a clean spread of win chances harder to build than it would be for a Grand Prix. Read the percentages below with that in mind. The full numbers for every combination are on the EquiRatings Prediction Centre, and the class is covered live on the ClipMyHorse.TV In-Out show here.
The top of the market
Win chance, top-three chance and the probability of a clear first round for the eight combinations the model rates highest. All eight have jumped at this level in the last year.
| Horse | Rider | Win | Top 3 | Clear R1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Landon de Nyze | Mark Bluman | 16% | 36% | 57% |
| Corbie V.V. | Daniel Bluman | 15% | 35% | 57% |
| Coriaan van Klapscheut Z | Shane Sweetnam | 10% | 27% | 51% |
| Casturano | Conor Swail | 10% | 24% | 46% |
| Descartes SR | Kent Farrington | 7% | 21% | 45% |
| My Clementine | Nina Mallevaey | 7% | 19% | 41% |
| Korbach van de Renger | Charlotte Jacobs | 5% | 15% | 36% |
| DSP Callas | Roberto Teran Tafur | 5% | 16% | 41% |
The gap from second to third is the story of the table. The Bluman cousins are on 16% and 15%. Nobody else is above 10%, and only two other horses are in double figures at all. Combined, the top two carry almost a third of the win probability between them in a 32-horse field.
Landon de Nyze: three riders, one horse, a new peak
Landon de Nyze arrived with Mark Bluman in December 2025 and won on his first start a week later, the MLSJ qualifier at Desert International Horse Park in Thermal. He won the MLSJ qualifier in Kentucky in April. He won the RBC Grand Prix of Canada at 1.60m at Spruce Meadows in June. Add a runner-up finish in the WEF 5* Grand Prix in February and another in the Jayman BUILT Cup at Spruce in July, two fourth places in the $750,000 Monterrey Grand Prix and the Recon Metal Cup, and a clear in the opening team round at the World Championships in Aachen for Israel two weeks ago.
The horse is 13 and this is his fourth season at the level, so the rating trend is the part to dwell on. Kent Farrington had him from May 2022 to June 2024, a spell that peaked with team gold and individual silver at the Pan American Games in Santiago and a second in the Big Ben at the Royal in 2022. Daniel Bluman took two starts on him in August and November 2025, including 18th in the Big Ben. Since Mark Bluman took over in December, the Elo has climbed from 687 to 746. His career high is 749. He is sitting a few points off the best he has ever been, and the best he has ever been is now.
| Landon de Nyze at CSI5* 155+ | Rounds | Clears | Clear rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark Bluman, Dec 2025 onward | 13 | 7 | 54% |
| Career, three riders | 70 | 30 | 43% |
Career totals across Kent Farrington, Daniel Bluman and Mark Bluman: 70 rounds, 30 clears, five wins and 15 podiums. With Mark Bluman alone: two wins and four podiums from 13 rounds.
Corbie V.V.: back where he won
Corbie V.V. and Daniel Bluman return to the venue where they won the Grand Prix last year. That win sits just outside the 12-month window, so it does not appear in the form below, but the MLSJ record around it does. They jumped seven MLSJ Grands Prix last season, went clear in six of them, and never finished outside the top 12.
The last 12 months at CSI5* 155+ read like a horse who keeps turning up in the frame without quite closing the deal. Runner-up in the $340,000 Grand Prix of Greenwich. Fourth in the MLSJ 1.60m Grand Prix at Tryon, fourth in the $750,000 Coachella Cup and fourth in the $340,000 Thermal Grand Prix. Third in the ATCO Queen Elizabeth II Cup at 1.60m at Spruce in July. A clear in the opening team round in Aachen. The model gives him a 57% chance of a first-round clear, the same as the favourite, and a 35% top-three chance. The win chance is a point lower, and the jump-off numbers further down explain why.
Favourite vs form: Landon de Nyze against Casturano
Conor Swail and Casturano won the Longines FEI World Cup here in Toronto last November, and on the numbers they are the most experienced current partnership in the field at this level. The comparison with the favourite depends entirely on which record you look at.
| CSI5* 155+, current partnership | Landon de Nyze | Casturano |
|---|---|---|
| Rider | Mark Bluman | Conor Swail |
| Rounds together | 13 | 43 |
| Clear rate | 54% | 51% |
| Elo rating | 746 | 727 |
| Win chance tonight | 16% | 10% |
On the current partnerships, Landon de Nyze takes the clear rate 54% to 51% and the rating 746 to 727. Switch to the horses’ full careers and it flips: Casturano’s 51% is ahead of Landon de Nyze’s career 43%. The interesting reading is the one in between. Landon de Nyze has 70 rounds at this level going back to May 2022, so he is the more experienced horse in this comparison, and at 13 he is producing a better clear rate with Mark Bluman than he managed in any of the Farrington years. Casturano’s advantage is volume in one pair of hands, 43 rounds to 13, and a strike rate that has held up across all of them.
Dangerous in a jump-off
A qualifier at 1.55m is likely to come down to a jump-off, and jump-off records separate the horses who get there from the horses who win there. Four combinations stand out, for different reasons.
| Jump-offs at CSI5* 155+ | Rounds | Clear | Wins | Podiums | Win conversion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ariso, Jordan Coyle | 5 | 80% | 3 | – | 60% |
| Landon de Nyze, Mark Bluman | 7 | 71% | 2 | – | 29% |
| Corbie V.V., Daniel Bluman | 15 | 60% | 1 | 5 | 7% |
| Casturano, Conor Swail | 21 | 57% | 3 | 8 | 14% |
Jordan Coyle and Ariso have the standout number: five jump-offs, four clears, three wins. Nobody else in the class is close to a 60% conversion. The model has them on a 2% win chance and a 25% chance of a first-round clear, so the whole question is whether they get there. If they do, the record says take them seriously.
Landon de Nyze’s 71% is the best jump-off clear rate among the leading contenders, and he is also the favourite on the win chances. Those two facts compound. A 57% chance of a first-round clear, and a horse who has jumped clean in five of his seven jump-offs at this level, makes 16% look conservative rather than generous.
Corbie V.V. is the mirror image. Fifteen jump-off rounds is real volume and 60% is a good rate, but one win from five podiums says he has been ridden for a placing more often than for the win. Casturano leads the table on appearances, 21, and on podiums, eight, the biggest number in that column and proof that nobody in this class has been in the frame more often. Three wins from 21 makes him consistent rather than lethal.
The rest of the top six
Shane Sweetnam & Coriaan van Klapscheut Z, 10%. Winners of WEF Challenge 12 at Wellington in March, a 1.55m class with a 60-strong field, on a double clear. That day marked the start of the big classes for this young horse. Fifth in the $750,000 Monterrey Grand Prix off a clear first round, clear opening rounds in the Nations Cups at Rotterdam and Dublin, plus 11th at the Traverse City World Cup and 12th in WEF Challenge 7.
Kent Farrington & Descartes SR, 7%. One of the top ten rated nine-year-olds in the world. Won the MLSJ 5* Grand Prix at Lexington in April at 1.60m on a double clear, third in the $750,000 Monterrey Grand Prix on another, and clear in the first round of the Falsterbo Nations Cup. Descartes sometimes takes his place behind Greya in the Farrington string, but the excitement around what this horse could become is building, and tonight is another chapter of it.
Nina Mallevaey & My Clementine, 7%. Their best results are at 1.55m or in a speed format, which is exactly tonight’s brief. Won the CSIO5* jump-off class at Spruce Meadows in September 2025 with the only clear of the field, won the Allianz at 1.55m in Aachen, third in the Ocala 1.55m World Cup qualifier in February and second in the Loro Piana Trophy in Rome in May, both double clears. Mallevaey comes off a big World Championships on her other horse, Dynastie du Beaufour.
Outside the market
Ten of the 32 have no CSI5* 155+ start in the last 12 months, so the form read only covers about two thirds of the startlist. Among the two thirds it does cover, a few names sit well below where their recent results would put them.
Skylar Wireman & Barclino B are on 2%. Second in the Longines FEI World Cup here in Toronto last November and third in the $750,000 Coachella Cup in December, both double clears. Seventh in the MLSJ 1.60m Grand Prix at Tryon, eighth in the Thermal World Cup, and last weekend sixth in the Bridgehampton 5* 1.55m qualifier and fourth in the 1.60m Grand Prix. That is the strongest recent record of anyone outside the top eight.
Jordy Van Massenhove & Lector have the freshest form in the field, ninth in the Bridgehampton 1.55m qualifier off a clear first round and eighth in the 1.60m Grand Prix two days later. Lillie Keenan & Anton were fourth in the Canadian Utilities Cup at Spruce in June on a double clear and 11th in the Monterrey $181,000 1.55m qualifier. Jad Dana & Itchcock des Dames, 4% on the model, jumped clear first rounds for sixth in the Recon Metal Cup and fifth in the RBC Grand Prix of Canada at Spruce in June. Elisa Broz & Consult Picobello Z were sixth in the Thermal 5* Grand Prix in January off a clear first round and 10th in both the Ocala CSIO5* qualifier and the WEF 5* Grand Prix.
| Win | Second | Third | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Model | Landon de Nyze | Corbie V.V. | Coriaan van Klapscheut Z |
| Jump-off conversion | Ariso 👀 | Landon de Nyze | Casturano |
| Recent form, off-market | Barclino B 👀 | Descartes SR | My Clementine |
The model wants a Bluman cousin. The jump-off book wants Jordan Coyle. The form book has a 2% shot who was second here in November.
The ratings say Landon de Nyze, in the best form of his life with his third rider. The venue says Corbie V.V. and Casturano, who have both won big classes at this venue. The jump-off book says Ariso. The recent form says Barclino B is badly underpriced at 2%. Who is on your podium?
Full win, top-three and clear-round chances for all 32 combinations are on the EquiRatings Prediction Centre. Watch the class live with the In-Out show on ClipMyHorse.TV here.